


sunrises and brain freezes

by rowansberry (amarowan)



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Fluff, Freshman Year, M/M, Rated teen for language, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, based off the word prompt 'dawn', ice cream and feelings, its so fucking wholesome you have no idea, its very soft mostly just gay pining, riz is insecure, riz says fuck a couple times, takes place after season 1 finale, technically canon compliant, thats it tho, they dont even get their kisses in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarowan/pseuds/rowansberry
Summary: Riz doesn't really sleep, and apparently Fabian can't either. Ice cream at 4 am is never a bad idea, right? Even when you realize how pretty your homie looks in the light of the early morning sun?-Set immediately after the events of the Freshman Year battle with Kalvaxus. Very PG and wholesome.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 10
Kudos: 179





	sunrises and brain freezes

Riz doesn’t sleep.

The reason for that always changes — a late night spent staring at his clue board, mind racing, drinking the dregs from coffee cups that are always somewhere between lukewarm and ice-cold; calling Fabian until 3 in the morning and figuring it was easier to just stay up instead of trying to sleep; frantically tearing through worksheets or textbooks he forgot he had to do before class starts the next day; laying in his bed, the world pitch black and silent around him, his mind full of thoughts too loud and colourful for him to even entertain the idea of sleep. He promised his mom that he would try getting a full four hours every night, but more often than not he would go days without anything resembling rest.

Even after the most taxing battle of Riz’s entire life, his mind keeps moving and he cannot bring himself to rest. (It helps that he managed to get three hours of sleep when Kristen used Aguefort’s watch to stop time, though. Three hours could carry him for at least the next day and a half.)

It was still dark when the police and the Maidens arrived at the Aguefort Academy gym, the rest of the Bad Kids bloodied and tearstained and worn as their world was filled with flashing lights and sounds of carnage, again. Riz turns to look at the people beside him — his adventuring party, his  _ friends _ — adrenaline slowly draining from his veins, and immediately catches how tired they all look. Fig is drooping over her guitar while Gorthalax strokes her hair softly, humming something under his breath as they sit together on the stairs leading up to the school. Gorgug is chatting with his  _ biological father _ — I know, Riz is as stunned as you are that after all of Gorgug’s embarrassing failures on that front that eventually he ended up finding the man he’s been looking for all this time — but even he’s letting out the occasional yawn. Tracker showed up at some point between the end of the battle and now, and is currently letting Kristen nap with her head on her lap while she chats with Jawbone, a vision of peace amidst the mess. Adaine is taking the elf equivalent of a nap, sitting peacefully off to the side, and Fabian—

Well. Fabian Aramais Seacaster seems just as awake as Riz. 

“The Ball,” he says, noticing Riz at the same time Riz notices him, “it appears that we are the only two members of our party left awake.”

“You’re not going to pass out with the rest of them?” Fabian lets out a small laugh, rich and deep even in its softness. Something warm lights itself in Riz’s chest at the sound.

“I could ask the same of you, The Ball,” Fabian replies, quirking an eyebrow towards him. “You look dead on your feet.”

“I’m not the only one,” he mutters under his breath, taking in the barely-healed scab over Fabian’s eye, the sheer number of bandages covering his arms and torso. “‘Sides, I slept during the … chronomancy bullshit.”

Fabian purses his lips, brows furrowing. “Three hours is  _ hardly _ enough sleep for anyone, let alone someone that nearly died tonight—”

“Why don’t we go get some ice cream?” Riz blurted out. His friends knew he had awful sleep patterns, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to reveal  _ just how little  _ he actually slept, especially when everyone was already high strung and coming down off the battle. (When Fabian learned that Riz had spent more than one evening just straight up not sleeping because of how late their calls went some nights he made it a point to hang up at 1 am exactly, so if Fabian knew that Riz only slept about three nights of the week, he would probably lock Riz in his bedroom with nothing but the bed to make sure he slept.) (Say what you will about Fabian Seacaster, but he cares about his friends. Riz wants nothing more than to make sure he stays on the positive side of that caring.) “We don’t have school tomorrow anyways, and my mom will probably be up all day cleaning up the mess we left here — both literally and figuratively — so she probably wouldn’t care where I go as long as I sleep at  _ some _ point, so—”

Fabian’s face split into that million-dollar grin, the one that sent Riz’s stomach into a full gymnastics routine. (He made a mental note to remember to investigate that, once everything was all over. He still had no clear idea as to why everything he felt around Fabian was so different from what he felt around Gorgug or Adaine or the rest of his friends.) “What a  _ fabulous _ idea, The Ball! I’ll call the Hangman right now.” Fabian’s demonic motorcycle comes revving up to the front of the gym, the roar of its engine startling Kristen out of her nap, causing her to shoot up and glance around blearily before setting her head back on Tracker’s lap. “To the ice cream shop!” Fabian yells as he mounts the Hangman, waiting expectantly as Riz clambers on a bit more hesitantly. He tentatively wraps his arms around Fabian’s torso — (“Come on, now, The Ball, we don’t want you flying off on the highway, hold tighter than that,”) — as Fabian mutters something under his breath, too quiet for Riz to hear. He can only assume that Fabian’s talking to the Hangman itself, not an odd sight, and the Hangman can really only be heard by the people it chooses to be heard by, so he resigns himself to listening to the murmurs of Fabian’s voice and feeling the vibrations it sends into his back, and thus, Riz’s chest as it presses against Fabian, as they drive towards Basrar’s ice cream shop. 

Luckily for the two of them, the ice cream shop opens at four in the morning, and they slide into a booth at the deserted shop before ordering two ice creams. (Strawberry for Riz and caramel for Fabian, if you were wondering.) Riz tries to take his time with the ice cream, he knows all too well how disgusting people can find goblins eating — it’s why he always waits until AV club to eat his lunch, no one will judge him there, it’s why he never accepts dinner invitations from people unless they’ve seen him scarf down food at an inhuman rate already — but the PB&J he had in the time freeze can only carry him so far and Basrar’s ice cream is pretty fucking good, and he tears into it ravenously before he can stop himself, leaving nothing but crumbs and a killer brain freeze behind. Fabian, to his credit, doesn’t look disgusted at all by it, and instead just laughs, big and booming, as Riz clutches his head as a cold, icy ache spreads through it. 

“To think that the mighty Ball could best Kalvaxus, a literal  _ dragon _ , and then be bested himself by a mere cone of ice cream,” Fabian says, provoking a scowl from Riz that soon shifted into a grimace. 

“Fuck off, Seacaster,” Riz growls, waiting for the ache in his brain to subside. Once it’s gone, he watches Fabian delicately work at his own bowl of ice cream. The silence is soft and gentle, no tension hanging in the air at all. “How’s your eye doing?”

Fabian reaches a hand up, as if to touch the scabs over his eye, but stops himself just before making contact. His face goes soft, an odd combination of scared and wistful that Riz doesn’t know how to interpret. “I somehow keep forgetting that I’m missing half my sight, and yet it’s constantly reminding me that things won’t ever be the same,” he says, setting his bowl down on the table. There’s a moment there, something vulnerable and soft and sad all wrapped in one, the golden glow of the quick-rising sun falling on Fabian’s warm brown skin, Fabian looking up from the table to meet Riz’s eyes and glancing away just as quickly, and Riz comes to a realization just as Fabian breaks them mood with a hearty, “You don’t think the scar will take away from my beauty, do you?”

Riz laughs, only half there as he responds, “If anything, it’ll add to it,” watching Fabian’s expression shift into a self-satisfied pleasure. With the light of dawn hitting the imposing and stunning visage of Fabian Aramais Seacaster, illuminating the scar that does, in fact, make Fabian just that much more attractive, Riz Gukgak realizes that what he feels for Fabian is probably a little more than friendship. (How did he not realize before this? The warmth he feels in his heart whenever he looks at Fabian and how easily Fabian can make him smile isn’t just  _ friendship _ , and why did it take him so long to figure that out?) There’s a lot he needs to unpack — all the clues that feel so obvious looking back at them now and not-so-obvious in the moment, what to do now that he knows he maybe probably definitely wants to get his kisses in with Fabian and Fabian only — but for now?

For now, Riz Gukgak watches his crush, the inimitable and sweet and caring and surprisingly dorky Fabian Aramais Seacaster suffer from the same brain freeze Riz himself fell victim to not even twenty minutes ago as the sun continues to rise, and dawn breaks on a new day — nay, a new  _ era _ — for the two of them.

**Author's Note:**

> based off of a 30-day writing challenge with the prompt 'dawn.' yes my brain somehow made that a gay ice cream outing after the biggest battle of their lives where riz's internal monologue won't shut up about how pretty fabian looks in the sunlight. so sue me, i like a little gay realization with my ice cream!
> 
> hopefully the next piece i post will be longer! kudos and comments will fuel the spite demon in me that churns out fics like there is no tomorrow


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